Team member Rosaly Lopes described the farewell celebration as bittersweet. "It was very emotional. We had people coming here today who worked on Galileo many years ago. Some had retired. Some had left for other jobs and it was like a big family reunion," she said.

Galileo was low on propellant and six years past its original end date. Launched from space shuttle Atlantis in 1989, it travelled 4.6 billion kilometres before disintegrating in Jupiter's dense atmosphere on Sunday.